"Evil EDH Combos: Land Splinters"

"Evil EDH Combos: Land Splinters"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Land. The basic source of mana for all of magic. Without it plans fail , realities become non-existent , Plans do not reach Fruition. So imagine if you have a combo that lets you waste away an opponents mono colored EDH deck into complete ruin.Such as the EDH Decks from Commander 2014 for example.

This is a very simple combo yet deadly in the right situation. It starts with Liquimetal Coating from the Scars of Mirrodin expansion which has also been reprinted in Commander decks. It is a 2 colorless mana costing artifact that taps to make a permanent an artifact in addition to all its other types. What you need to do is target your opponents Forest , Plains , Mountain , Island or Swamp and then target it with this...

Yup , Splinter from the Betrayers of Kamigawa expansion would exile your target artifact , then it would search for an opponents graveyard , hand and library for cards with the same name and exile them. All I can say is Ouch. Taking away possible plans in one stroke is devastating for mono colored decks. Lands that are not played yet disappear. Future land draws or fetches disappear. Targets for Life from the Loam or cards that could be played by Crucible of Worlds are gone.

Yes there might be other non basic lands in an EDH deck but without the main power of basic lands plans grind to an excruciatingly slow motion. Mono blue decks that do not have mana acceleration are prone to this tactic. Or basically any deck that has not developed it's mana base early on with Mana Rocks or Mana Dorks. Crippling? Yes.

However , there are some weaknesses to this plan , Such as when you are facing an EDH deck with multicolored mana. Dual or Tri-colored decks have a lesser number of basic lands and might not be as devastated by this combo .So the point in choosing lands in a Black/Blue deck for example is the color that would be more damaging to your future plans. Do you want to take away the Card Drawing and Countering power of blue or the Pinpoint/ Mass Destruction or tutoring effect of black? Choose wisely because you can be sure the other players on the EDH table will be on high alert after you pull off this combo.

The other weakness is that late in the game where a lot of lands are already in play the removal of excess lands from a deck may accelerate your opponents into their combo pieces. Take note that other artifacts with the same name on the battlefield are not affected by splinter. So Forests already in play stay in play despite all your best efforts. Sigh.

I would also like to add that this combo works well with Myr Landshaper , the difference is that it is much slower since the Myr Landshaper is a creature who cannot tap to activate its ability the moment it comes into play(Unless you equip Lightning Greaves to it). It also costs one colorless mana more but it is a redundancy that you would want to have in your EDH deck when you have a strategy that revolves around splinter. 

Another Day. Another Evil EDH combo. Thanks for reading.